If your primary source of news is the mainstream media you are likely convinced that the Occupy Wall Street protests are insightful, peaceful, and growing by the minute. Last week, Diane Sawyer of ABC got so excited she reported the Occupy Wall Street movement had “spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries…and every continent but Antarctica.” For the record, according to the U.S. State Department there are only 195 countries in the world.
The truth about the protest that has now spread around the world (to at least 20 countries) is that it is unruly, unfocused, and populated by people who believe defecating on police cars and trampling the American flag are legitimate means of expressing their opinions. And just what opinions are being expressed? How about the idea that American Capitalism should be replaced by pure socialism? Or, how about the idea that what America needs is a huge dose of wealth redistribution? Protestors in Chicago chanted, “We’re the ninety-nine percent,” and “the whole world is watching!”
Apparently the whole world is also weighing in on the significance of the movement. Speaking about the protestors that great international champion of freedom, Hugo Chavez said, “the repression is horrible, I don’t know how many are in prison now.” Just as Diane Sawyer was confused about how many countries there are Chavez must have been confused thinking someone had just asked him how many of the people of Venezuela he has jailed.
This weekend the protestors gained the much-coveted support of the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party USA. On Sunday, an unnamed spokesperson for the American Nazi Party wrote, “The Occupy Wall Street protests are tailor made for National Socialists, as well as White Nationalists who are serious about doing something.” The something they are serious about doing is creating chaos and instability in American Society for the purpose of destroying our capitalist system.
Not to be outdone by the Nazis, John Bachtell, an Illinois-based community organizer (sound familiar) and Communist Party USA board member told a cheering crowd, “I bring greetings and solidarity from the Communist Party. We are here, marching side-by-side. We’ll sleep here. We’ll be with this movement till the very…till we make the changes that we know we have to make.”
From Cuba to China and from Venezuela to Iran there doesn’t seem to be a totalitarian regime on the planet that isn’t giddy about the protestors. And oddly enough so are many in the Democrat Party. Nancy Pelosi said, “God bless them for their spontaneity. Its independent people coming…it’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a petition seeking 100,000 party supporters who are willing to declare they are ready to “stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.”
But the real purpose of the occupiers isn’t random chaos or ramped-up rhetoric against the rich. Their real purpose is to crash the Tea Party and take the American electorates collective mind off of the failed polices of the Obama Administration and refocus it on the supposed greed of Wall Street.
The Left realizes it needs a straw man…a scapegoat where they can lay the blame of the stagnant American economy. Stimulus packages, bailouts, tax gimmicks, nothing has worked to turn the economy around, so when you have nothing to run on you have to manufacture something to run against. That something happens to be American Capitalism. The Left wing of the Democrat Party is scared to death of the Tea Party. They long for a national response they can turn into a kind of “reverse Tea-Party movement.”
The problem of course is that the Occupy Wall Street movement bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Tea Party. When have you ever seen Tea Party protestors getting arrested for blocking the road or throwing rocks at police? For that matter, when have you ever seen the Tea Party squatting for days on public property, running up a bill on the American taxpayers? Tea Party members don’t camp. They come, they speak out, and then they go back home to take care of their families by working for a living. They are the backbone that makes America strong by occupying Main Street and giving our economy a fighting chance to recover. They stand in resolute contrast to the occupiers who are the tailbone of America looking for their next opportunity to sit back and receive their handout.
Matthew Spalding, in his excellent book We Still Hold These Truths points out the difference between liberty and freedom. “Freedom,” Spalding says, “is often used to suggest a more open-ended sense of autonomy, meaning that we are free to do whatever we want.” Contrast that meaning with the meaning of the word liberty. Spalding says, “Liberty means the rightful exercise of freedom, the balancing of rights and responsibilities.”
That is exactly the difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Tea Party patriots understand that freedom without morality and responsibility leads to anarchy. And that is exactly what the occupiers want.
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Dr. Tony Beam received his Bachelor of Arts Degree at Limestone College, Gaffney, SC, 1980; his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Seminary, Wake Forest, NC., 1990; and his Doctor of Ministry from Southern Seminary, Louisville, KY, 2002. Dr. Beam is currently Director of Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville University. Dr. Beam is Host of Christian World View Today, AM 660 from 7 - 8 a.m., Mon. - Fri.
